Way of the Slugcat

Pitfalls

(Special thanks to Mr.Buckethead on Discord for allowing me to use his OC, Karl the red lizard!)

If the sun had not already been overcast by clouds, the sight ahead of Thorns certainly would have. A collection of massive steel towers loomed before the slugcats as they made their way through the valley. Their peaks pierced the clouds with unfathomable strength. If one continued to guide their eyes to the sky, they would catch sight of dozens, no, hundreds of smoke stacks rising above the cloud level with ease. Nothing flew from their gaping mouths, not even a single puff of smoke. They all stood empty and forlorn, looking down on the slugcats from thousands of feet in the air. The second Thorns noticed the smoke stacks, he knew exactly what stood before him.
"A factory?" He asked. "You are taking me to a factory?" Why would he? The place looked abandoned judging by the lack of smoke. They would not find anything of value there.
"No, not the factory." Night chimed in. "We are simply going through it. The pipes in there are extremely large on the inside. You can get anywhere you desire from here."
"You mean the smoke stacks?"
"Er, yes?"
"So we are going up... there?" Thorns gave Night a concerned head tilt as he pointed up towards the top of the towers.
"Oh, no no no, not up there! You wouldn't last five minutes." Night said with a smile. "We are going through the factory, not on top of it." Thorns let out a sigh of relief.
"Good! Yes, very good. I can handle walking through an abandoned factory."
"Who ever said that it was abandoned?"
Thorns' ears shot straight up. If it wasn't abandoned, were some of his people still in there? They could not see him like this! They might think of him as food, or a pet, or some kind of pest! He knew a good number of individuals who would not hesitate to smack him with a stick and toss him out a window if he was caught within a facility such as the one that loomed ahead. But... it did not look as if it were in use...
"The lizards are everywhere in there." Night continued. "Just because the straights left it behind does not mean that it is empty."
Thorns let his nerves relax. Just lizards, not straights.
"Wait, Night?" Thorns asked. "What are straights?"
"The tall creatures with fancy heads. They have abnormally straight posture. I have not seen them around for a long time, though."
"Ah. I see..."
Thorns stopped walking. He planted his feet into the ground beneath him and stared up at the industrial tower. The slugcats had been consumed by its shadow. Soon, they were to be consumed by the building itself. It looked sad, standing alone in a strange wilderness with nothing but wild beasts to keep it company. Some of its supports had already collapsed. It did not look like the most stable of places.
Thorns felt a paw on his shoulder. He turned to Night, who was standing with his back to the factory. Thorns followed his gaze. In the distance, a cluster of grey clouds had started to form. Without hesitation, both slugcats wordlessly turned their backs to the storm and continued onwards.

Every time the wind blew, the structure would let out an agonized groan. The pipe the slugcats entered through was made of pure, cold metal. Little plants grow up through the many cracks in its belly and every sound that was made traveled twice as far as it normally would. A sense of unease fell over Thorns as they crawled deeper into the factory. It was suffocating. A weight had been placed on his tiny white body, a weight that kept telling him that he should turn around, that he should get out from under the structure's roof as soon as possible. However, something else pulled him in the opposite direction. It pushed him forwards, made him want to go deeper, to explore and poke his nose into every nook and cranny he found. As he and Night emerged from the confines of the tunnel, Thorns was glad that he had listened to the second urge.
A large, open room greeted them with open arms. Mechanical claws and cranes hung from the ceiling, which seemed to Thorns to be miles above him. They swayed slightly with the direction of the wind, which slipped inside through broken windows. All that was left of them were the frames, rusted and choked by vines with no glass in sight. Endless rows of conveyor belts covered the room's floor, all of them long dead. The gears and chains that once gave them life had been consumed by malice, rusted away in shades of red and brown. The limp arms of disassembled machines lay scattered around the room without order. The rest of their corpses could be found in pieces, sprinkled about the belts and cranes. The lever to a transport machine, the flattened tire of a digger, the engine of a harvester leaking some kind of grotesque fluid...
"Look at all of this!" Thorns exclaimed. His giddy voice bounced off the amalgamation of colors on the walls. Every inch of them had been stained by one color or another, apparently used as a canvas for graffiti. Many messages had been written on the walls, and many of them had been lost to the rains. Most had been transformed into warped versions of their former selves, creating nothing more than a splash of neon color on the bricks of the factory.
"Is it not an incredible sight?" Night said, strolling over to a patch of smeared purple letters. "I pass through this place often. This stain on the wall is rather pleasing to look at. It takes some stress away from the cycle, in my opinion."
"Hmm..." Thorns squinted at it. He could almost make out a couple of the letters. The problem with graffiti was that even if it were completely intact, the bubble letters could be difficult to read. They all seemed to blend together. "...that... gild... no no, gold. That gold and water shall..."
"You can read that?" Night took his eyes off of the purple mess to look at his friend.
"Barely. It seems that this was written some time ago."
"Interesting. The last time I met someone who could read was ages ago. Her name was Looks to the Moon. The first time we met, she-"
A sudden crash sounded from within the tunnel, followed by the desperate scraping of claws on metal. The noise echoed out the tunnel's mouth and filled the room, followed by a soft pop. A couple green balls came flying from the sound's origin, bouncing off of the concrete floor and rolling to a stop.
Thorns startled and jumped backwards, tumbling onto the remnants of an old machine. When he looked up, Night was beside him. He had his paw pressing down on his neck, forcing him into a crouch. The white in his eyes went wide with fear.
"What was-"
"Shhh!" Night hissed. "It might pass us by."
"Yes, but what-"
"Stay quiet!"
It was obvious that Night could see something Thorns could not. His head was raised slightly above the level that Thorns' was at, therefore giving him a better view of the situation. According to the slugcat's expression, it did not seem ideal. He leaned down to Thorns' level and pressed his muzzle against the opening of his ear.
"Red lizard."
Thorns's stomach dropped.
"It caught an eggbug. Occupied. We need to move."
The two friends slowly turned their bodies towards the other end of the room. There, partially hidden behind the clawed hand of a sorting crane, was another tunnel. Thorns kept his head down as low as it could go, listening intently to the sounds of the lizard tearing into the bug's flesh. If that sound ever ceased to reach his ears, he knew that the lizard would be right on his tail. Literally, in this case, since he actually had one now. From Night's previous description of the beast's behavior, Thorns guessed that neither of them would stand a chance against it.
A nerve wracking thirty seconds passed. The slugcats reached the end of the sea of conveyor belts. Night climbed into the tunnel first, bending his body around the claw that obscured it. Thorns followed as close behind as possible. He did not dare look behind him, even for a second.
This time, he did not spend very long in the darkness of a cramped passageway. The tunnel made a sudden turn to the left and expanded into a small room lined with poles. Three of them stood on each side of the room, standing at attention like a line of soldiers. A few tunnels branched off from the room in separate directions. Thorns could count at least four of them from where he was standing, but it was obvious that Night had his eyes on a specific one. His eyes were focused on a tunnel on the right side of the room, elevated above the rest by a pile of scrap metal. One of the poles was placed conveniently in front of it, making for a quick and easy escape. Without hesitation, Thorns made his way to the exit.
Can I climb that? He wondered as he approached the pole's base. It seemed easy enough to scale. Not too high and not too rough, as it lacked the tumors of rust that the others had. Could he fit his paws around its circumference? Only one way to find out...
"Don't touch that!" Night yelled. He grabbed Thorns' wrist in a firm grasp and yanked it away from the pole.
"Night? Hey! What is that about?" Thorns huffed in response.
"I will show you once we get into the tunnel. Now hurry!"
With that, Thorns was dragged up to the opening the difficult way, clambering over the crumbling pile of rubble.
This is Garbage Wastes all over again... he complained, although he did not dare to say that aloud. Once the slugcats reached the top, Thorns turned back to the pole.
"So, what is so special about this thing?"
"First, you take this." Night produced a broken piece of rebar from the pile that they stood on and handed it to the white slugcat. Thorns took it with a confused expression on his face. Then, Night bent down and picked up a small rock before continuing.
"Second, watch carefully." The rock went flying from Night's grasp directly towards the pole. Thorns anticipated the sound that it would make when it bounced off its metal surface, a sharp and satisfying clink that was, for some unknown reason, pleasant to the ears. The pole, however, had other ideas.
The rock collided with the pole. In response, the pole recoiled. A fleshy splat sounded from its surface as its entire body wiggled and pulsated in annoyance. Red fibers emerged from its sides, flailing about in the air before settling down again, collapsing back into the pole's body. After a few seconds, it went still. Nothing remained to separate it from the verticale steel pillars that it mimicked, aside from its lack of rust.
Thorns stared. He gripped his spear a little tighter.
"It is a 'pole'." Night explained. "Use air quotes when you say its name. Now, let us get going."
"Wait-"
"You may ask questions later, I promise. For now, let us continue."
"...okay. Okay, I am alright with that." Thorns was most definitely not alright with it. How had he never heard of a "pole" before!? How many "poles" had he passed on his way here? How many more "poles" were hiding in plain sight, right in front of him? His black eyes glared at the other poles in the room suspiciously.
"Thorns, hurry up!" Night called from the other side of the tunnel. Reluctantly, the white slugcat turned away from the mimic.
You will not fool me again. He thought. I will not stand to be tricked by a plant.